Think Jurickson looks familiar? Maybe you remember him from the Little League World Series, which he twice played in for his native Curacao. Profar helped pitch his team to a LLWS championship as an 11-year-old in 2004, when he struck out 19 and allowed just one run in 12.1 innings as a pitcher. Then in 2005, Profar hit .389 to help Curacao back to the LLWS championship game, though they fell one run short of back-to-back titles. Profar told MiLB.com: “It was the greatest feeling. Being in the U.S., everybody likes baseball and the series. It was a big thing for me to win it.”

ESPN analyst and former Reds and Nationals GM Jim Bowden joined KESN-FM recently to discuss the Rangers' off-season. Here are some highlights:

On what the Rangers should do with Elvis Andrus:

I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I’ll tell you what I would do if I was Jon Daniels… I think I would park [Jurickson] Profar at short and [Mike] Olt at third at triple-A to start the year. I’d go with Beltre, Andrus, Kinsler and Moreland in the infield. It’s the same infield that took you to two World Series, and I would try to win with that. Mike Olt, to me, is not going to be a corner outfielder. Mike Olt’s best position is third base. He’ll never be a Beltre, Longoria, Wright or Zimmerman level third baseman, but I think he’s going to be a trade piece to get the corner outfielder, or the trade piece to get the big first baseman or whatever the biggest need is. And I would leave him at the position where I think his trade value would be the highest – at third. Profar, I would prepare to be the full-time shortstop in 2014. And I would sit with Andrus, and even though [his agent is] Scott Boras, I would make offers to Andrus. I would understand what the market is, I would try to be as fair as possible. And if I got to November and I got the conclusion that I could not sign him, then I would trade him next off-season. But I look at this pennant race as three evenly matched teams with the Rangers, the Athletics and the Angels, and I say you go for it. You try to get back to the World Series with the team you have now. You do it with Andrus at short, you don’t start the clock on Profar for arbitration and free agency, you let him continue to develop so that when he steps into Andrus’ shoes, he’s ready to go.

I’d keep [Andrus] this year. He’s too good of a player. Great range to both sides, I love his smile, I love his electricity. It’s not going to hurt Profar at his age to start the year in triple-A.

On the offer Texas made for Justin Upton:

I was told that Texas never put Cody [Buckel] in the deal. They refused the entire time. They wouldn’t put [Jurickson] Profar in, which I don’t blame them. I say Profar goes nowhere, I say he’s your long-term shortstop and let’s not have that conversation, but I did think that a package of [Mike] Olt, [Martin] Perez and Cody was fair to me in a deal for Justin Upton. And my understanding is Texas never went that far. They never included the three in the offer. Right or wrong, I can’t tell you except that someone that was involved in the talks told me that was the case.

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